The Gospel woes; Lent sermons

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!EV. A. C. A. HALL D.D.

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The Gospel Woes

Xent Sermons

RT. REV. a/' O^AV^ALL, D.D.

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF VERMONT

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h;r^/-M\-p

NEW YORK
JAMES POTT & CO., PUBLISHERS

114 Fifth Avenue
1896

PUPUC LIBRARY

738510A

:TlLD£t^FOUNDATlONSj
j^ 1934

CopTRiaHT, 1891, By
JAMES POTT & CO.

TROW'8

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,

NEW YORK.

PREFACE.

These Sermons were preached on the Sun-
day mornings in Lent, 1890, in the Mission
Church of S. John the Evangelist, Boston.
They have been subsequently written out for
publication in the hope that they may suggest
helpful thoughts for meditation on one aspect
of our Lord's teaching, an aspect to which
our time would seem to give less than its due
prominence. With the exception of S. Mat-
thew xxiv. 19, all the Woes pronounced by
our Lord, as recorded by the different Evan-
gelists, are considered in these Sermons, In
them, as in other publications, the author
is much more largely indebted to others'
thoughts than he has often been able to ac-
knowledge.

Mission House of S. John Evangelist, Boston.
Epiphany, 1891.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. The Woe on Worldly Ease and Content-
ment 7

II. The Woe on Worldly Popularity 21

III. The Woe on the Abuse of Religious Priv-

ileges 3^

IV. The Woe on Offences 49

V. The Woe on Hypocrisy 67

VI. The Woe on the Traitor 82

THE WOE ON WORLDLY EASE AND
CONTENTMENT.

*' Woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have received your

consolation.
Woe unto you that are full ! for ye shall hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and

weep." — S. Luke vi. 24, 25.

We are to consider on the Sunday mornings
in this Lent the Gospel Woes. You will under-
stand that it is not in the way of gloomy de-
nunciation or critical thought of others that
we are to regard them, but so that we may
avoid their falling on ourselves.

In this spirit we will consider the Woe pro-
nounced by Jesus Christ our Lord in the
Gospel

(i) On Worldly Ease and Contentment, as

in the text;

(2) On Worldly Popularity— "Woe unto
you when all men speak well of you ;" '

1 S. Luke vi. 26.

8 THE GOSPEL WOES.

(3) On the Abuse of Religious Privileges
— " Woe unto you Chorazin and Bethsaida ;" '

(4) On those who put Stumbling-blocks in
the way of others — " It must be that offences
come, but woe to that man by whom the
offence cometh ; '"^

(5) On Hypocrisy, such as was illustrated
in the conduct of the Scribes and Pharisees/

(6) On the Traitor — "Woe unto him by
whom the Son of Man is betrayed." "

In thinking Whose these several utterances
were, one is reminded of Dr. Newman's tofach-
ing and most thoughtful lines concerning the
severity of Christian teaching with regard to
the consequence or punishment of evil and
** The Wrath to Come:"

" Christ on Himself, considerate Master, took
The utterance of that doctrine's fearful sound.
The Fount of Love His servants sends to tell
Love's deeds ; Himself reveals the sinner's Hell."'

From a lower point of view, looking at our
Lord's Human life, we may helpfully ask,
Who spake the words of Woe that we are
specially to consider to-day?

"Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have your con-
solation.

' S. Matt. xi. 20-24. 2 s. Matt, xviii. 7.

3 S. Matt, xxiii. 23-28. ^ S. Matt. xxvi. 24.

5 Lyra Apostolica^ Ixxxiii.

WORLDLY EASE AND CONTENTMENT. Q

Woe unto you that are full ! for ye shall hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and
weep."

It is the utterance of no cynical pessimist,
disparaging earthly life in proud discontent,
and careless and indifferent to others' interests,
their joys or sorrows. He Who spake thus
had fed the fainting multitude, and provided
wine to cheer the wedding-feast at Cana. He
would have His disciples rejoice with them that
rejoiced, as well as weep with them that wept.

Nor was this the envious utterance of a
social revolutionist working for a general up-
heaval of the established order, in which the
prosperous might be dragged down and the
needy climb up on their ruin. He Who so
spake had voluntarily renounced for Himself
that against which He warns others. Though
He was rich, yet for our sakes He became
poor, that we through His poverty might be
made truly rich.' He is Himself the Man of
Sorrow^s, and He promises blessings, a counter-
part of these Woes, on the poor, on those that
hunger and that mourn. Whatever the form
of words the tone is of pity rather than of
denunciation ; the utterance is not an impre-
cation, but a solemn warning not unmixed
with sympathy.

' 2 Cor. viii. q.

lO THE GOSPEL WOES.

The key to our Lord's meaning is to be
found in the explanatory clause appended to
the first Woe. " Woe unto you that are rich !
for ye have your consolation." The verb is the
same that our Lord uses when He warns
against the performing of religious exercises,
prayer, fasting, almsgiving, with a view to be-
ing seen of men. Those who so act, He says,
*' have their reward ; " have it, that is, in full
measure.' They have what they sought.
They work for human applause, and they re-
ceive it. They are paid in full. So here.
" Ye have all your consolation — all that you
have a care for, all therefore that you can
have."

L On this we may well pause to note the
general law of God's dealing with men. In
the moral no less than in the material uni-
verse the law of Retribution prevails. God
gives to all what they really seek. Set your-
self really to work for an end, and you may
gain it, whatever it is worth. You may gain
pleasure, money, position. The folly of sin is
not so much that men miss what they aim at,
as that they miss a true aim ; they set before
them a mistaken aim. They get what they
seek for, and when they have it, lo, it is not

1 S. Matt. vi. 2, 5, i6.

WORLDLY EASE AND CONTENTMENT, II

what they expected. God gives them their
desire, and sends leanness withal into their
soul/ This is the truth expressed by S. Paul
in figurative language concerning the Moral
Harvest. " Be not deceived ; God is not
mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but
he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit
reap life everlasting."^

Two kinds of life, both seeking after good,
each sowing its own seed and each reaping its
appropriate harvest, are contrasted as *' sow^
ing to the flesh " and "sowing to the spirit."
We are not to limit the former to gross and
sensual living. The two stand for what are
elsewhere called the Natural and the Spirit-
ual or Regenerate life, a walking by faith and
a walking by sight. Every man understands
more or less the difference between the two —
the goods sought by the one and by the other
life. It is the difference between prosperity
and well-doing, between indulgence and no-
bleness, between comfort and inward peace,
between pleasure and striving after perfec-
tion, between happiness and blessedness.'

1 Ps. cvi. 15. ' Gal. vi. 7, 8.

2 The Principle of the Spiritual Harvest, in Fredk.
Wm. Robertson's Sermons (ist Series).

12 THE GOSPEL WOES.

Men labor for one or for the other ; and in
great measure they gain what they work for.
Aims bounded by the horizon of this world
reap wealth, reputation, position, comfort.
But what is this but a harvest of corruption,
poor blighted ears of useless grain which only
mock those who spend their money for that
which is not bread, their labor for that which
satisfieth not ? Luxuriance there may be in
the harvest, but real rottenness.

Here I should like to read a most admirable
letter (which some may have seen in the pub-
lic prints) written by Dr. Lyman Abbott to
the editor of a Southern newspaper, who put
to him certain questions about the Christian
religion, the answers to which were to be pub-
lished in his paper :

*' Belief in Jesus Christ is not an easy
method of gaining happiness and life eternal.
Salvation is not a crown, a robe, a harp, and
a palace. Character is salvation, and there is
no short and easy way to it. The heresy of
heresies — worst of all heresies, labelled or un-
labelled, that have ever corrupted mankind — is
the notion that there is some way by w^hich a
man may get admission into heaven without
purity, truth, love. Heaven is purity, truth,
love. No man can get into heaven unless
heaven gets into him. The blessedness of
heaven is to be poor in spirit, meek, merciful,

WORLDLY EASE AND CONTENTMENT. 1 3

pure in heart. The kingdom of God is not
mccat and drink, nor songs and golden streets,
but righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Ghost— that is, in the fellowship of Him
who is Himself Righteousness and Peace and
Joy. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is
not a substitute for obedience, but a method
and a standard of obedience. We believe in
Him when we obey Him.

"Why do not large numbers of persons avail
themselves of His offer? For the simple rea-
son that it has no attractions to them. They
do not believe that to be poor in spirit, to be
meek, to be merciful, to be pure in heart, is
to be blessed. Their beatitudes — the beati-
tudes they really believe in— are of a different
order ; they read as follows :

" Blessed are the high-spirited : for theirs is
the kingdom of the earth."

*' Blessed are the grasping : for they shall
get possession of the earth."

"Blessed are they which do hunger and
thirst after riches : for they shall be filled."

" Blessed are the proud : for they shall have
their own way."

" Blessed are the pleasure-seekers : for they
shall have a good time."

"To believe in Jesus Christ is to revolution-
ize these ideals ; to care very little for condi-
tions, and a great deal for character ; to count

14 THE GOSPEL WOES.

it more blessed to give than to receive, to serve
than to be served, to be than to have, to see
God than to acquire the earth. Believing in
Christ means thinking as Christ thought, esti-
mating life as Christ estimated it, obeying
Christ, following Christ, doing as Christ did,
becoming Christ-like. This is very simple ;
but it is not easy. Large numbers of people
do not avail themselves of Christ's offer be-
cause they do not really care for what Christ
offers. They want to be happy, but they are
not particularly desirous to be good. And it
is goodness which Christ offers to those that
believe in Him, obey Him, follow Him."

n. You see what it is on which Jesus our
Lord pronounces this Woe. It is not riches,
nor rich men, as such. It is the temper that
rests in worldly prosperity, that finds in earthly
things its consolation and satisfaction. The
Woe is on Worldly Contentment and Ease.
In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus,*
which is a kind of illustration of this declara-
tion of our Lord, Dives was not in torment
because he was rich, but because he was selfish,
and being rich spent all on himself; because
while he was clothed in purple and fine linen,
and fared sumptuously every day, he left

* S. Luke xvi. 19.

WORLDLY EASE A.VD CONTENTMENT. I 5

Lazarus uncared for at his gate ; he failed to
recognize the responsibility that attached to
his position, the stewardship for the wealth
that was entrusted to him. And Lazarus was
not in Abraham's bosom simply because he
was a beggar or poor, but because he was
contented. Wealth rightly used does not shut
out from Heaven. Nor does Poverty patiently
borne admit thereto. You may sell your soul
for a dollar as well as for a thousand. Avarice
may be manifested in sanding sugar as in
watering stocks. Judas betrayed his Master
for. thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave.
Certainly it is not the rich as such on whom
Jesus pronounces woe any more than He pro-
nounced the poor as such necessarily blessed.
A Nicodemus and a Joseph of Arimathaea
will be welcomed with open arms as readily
as the poorest man in Israel.

HL These very names serve as an illustra-
tion that in part explains our Lord's Woe on
Worldly Prosperity. They illustrate the evil
and dangers of wealth, the way in which
Worldly Prosperity may involve us in this Woe.
Nicodemus and Joseph were both high in
station, members of the Sanhedrin, the rul-
ing body among the Jews. And both were
kept back from avowing themselves disciples
of Jesus through fear of losing social posi-

1 6 THE GOSPEL WOES.

tion.^ Nicodemus comes by night to learn of
Him. Joseph also is a disciple secretly for fear
of the Jews. How often is their case repeated !
Instead of wealth being used for its legitimate
ends, it serves to hold people back. What
would So and So say ? is the question asked by
those who would lead in society. Instead of
ruling they are ruled, slaves to popular opin-
ion. How hardly, with what difficulty, shall
the rich enter into the kingdom of Heaven ! '

IV. Prosperity, Social Position, Ease of Life,
to which our Lord refers, against the peril of
which He warns His hearers, has another
danger. It directly tends to deaden spiritual
susceptibilities. It kills our nobler ambitions.
Wealth tends to clog the finer spiritual sensi-
bilities of the soul, and you see men, as the
Psalmist says, whose hearts are as fat as
brawn, ^ literally so cased and padded in the
things of this life as to have lost altogether
their sense of the supernatural.

It was said by a great English economist,
Mr. Richard Cobden, "Sir, when I go to
church there is one prayer which I say with
my whole soul. ' In all time of our wealth
[so the petition runs in the English Litany],

1 S. John iii. 2 ; vii. 50 ; xix. 38, 39.

2 S. Matt. xix. 23. ^ Ps. cxix. 70.

WORLDLY EASE AND CONTENTMENT. 1/

Good Lord deliver us.' " Aye, and we have
much reason to pray that prayer. Deliver us
from the quiet selfishness ; deliver us from the
grosser temptations ; but deliver us above all
from the blinding, numbing, paralyzing power
of easy circumstances, which make death and
the great realities beyond it an unwelcome
thought.^ Worldly prosperity is so apt to
become worldly ease and contentment. The
temptation is so great to settle down and make
our home here, in the spirit of the rich fool.^

It was for this reason that our Lord coun-
selled the rich young man, in whom He saw
such possibilities for good that looking on
him He loved him, to go and sell all that he
had, and to follow Him in poverty. Jesus saw
that his great possessions were a hindrance to
his perfection, held him back from a full and
free surrender to Jesus as His disciple.'

We can understand now the remarkable
difference between the Beatitudes as recorded
by S. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount,
and those given by S. Luke in the Sermon on
the Plain.* The discourses seem to be distinct,
delivered on different occasions, and to some-
what different classes of hearers. S. Luke

'Dr. Liddon's Sermon on Personal Responsibility for
the Gift of Revelation.

2 S. Luke xii. 19. 3 S. Mark x. 21.

4 S. Matt. V. 3-1 1 3 S. Luke vi. 20-22.

1 8 THE GOSPEL WOES.

omits the qualifying moral condition which is
given in S. Matthew, '' Blessed are the poor in
spirit. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst
after righteousness.'' Our Lord blesses the out-
ward condition, of poverty and outward need,
as a means to gaining the higher spiritual dis-
position. Outward poverty should tend to
poverty of spirit ; the absence of earthly satis-
faction to hungering and thirsting after right-
eousness.

Lent, my brethren, is a time to lay these
things to heart. We are bidden now more es-
pecially to commune with our own heart and
in our chamber and be still ; to break through
the crust of material comfort, to abstain from
earthly and social pleasures, to take account
of ourselves and of our position before God,
to weigh ourselves in the measures of the
sanctuary. Certainly there is a real danger
against which we have to guard in our time of
advancing material civilization, that this be
not detrimental to true progress, that the in-
ner man be not drowned, as it were, and
smothered, as is quite possible, by the very
civilization that our hands have wrought. A
man's life, we need continually to be remind-
ed, consists not in the abundance of things
which he possesseth.'

* S. Luke xii. 15.

WORLDLY EASE AND CONTENTxMENT. 1 9
A familiar Psalm expresses the truth :

"While many are saying, *0 for the sight of good for-
tune ! '

Jehovah, lift Thou up the light of Thy face upon us [so
the faithful pray].

Thou hast put more joy into my heart

Than when others have their corn and new wine in abun-
dance." ^

To Laodicea was sent the warning message :

"Because thou sayest, I am rich and am
increased in goods, and have need of noth-
ing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched
and miserable and poor and blind and naked :
I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by
fire that thou may est be rich." . . .

"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten,''
adds the Lord.^ " God in mercy mingles bit-
terness with earthly pleasures," says S. Chry-
sostom, " that we may seek another felicity
whose sweetness does not deceive." I may
conclude with a quotation from the Bampton
Lectures of the Bishop of Ripon, Dr. Boyd
Carpenter:

" If the end which is set before us be the
education of our characters, then we shall not
think it strange that we are called on to strug-
gle, permitted to fall, given the experiences of

> Ps. iv. 6-8. (Cheyne's translation.)
2 Rev. iii. 17-19.

20 THE GOSPEL WOES.

success, and exposed to the vicissitudes and
the seasonal trials of life,

* Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy.*

For it is thus that a Divine Love deals with
us, that in the end we may become possessed
of that wealth which the world cannot take
away, the spiritual wealth of a perfected and
developed character." ^

^ The Permanent Elements in Religion^ p. 323.

II.

THE WOE ON WORLDLY POPULAR-
ITY.

"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you !
For so did their fathers to the false prophets."

— S. Luke vi. 26.

This Woe on Worldly Popularity was pro-
nounced by our Lord along with those which
we considered last Sunday on Worldly Ease
and Contentment. The others which we have
set down for the remaining Sundays in Lent
were all uttered on separate and distinct oc-
casions.

These earlier Woes are peculiar to S. Luke,
recorded by him alone.

" Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have
received your consolation.

*'Woe unto you that are full now, for ye
shall hunger.

"Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall
mourn and weep.

"Woe unto you when all men shall speak
well of you."

22 THE GOSPEL WOES.

It is as if S. Luke as a physician of the soul
treasured up and recorded our Lord's warn-
ings against the perilous temptations that
worldly prosperity and success, of whatever
kind, bring with them.

You will remember that these four Woes of
S. Luke correspond with the four Blessings
recorded in the Sermon on the Plain, which
seems (as I said last Sunday) to have been a
repetition of the substance, with certain vari-
ations as addressed to a somewhat different
audience, of the Sermon on the Mount re-
corded by S. Matthew :

" Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the king-
dom of God.

" Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye
shall be filled.

" Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall
laugh.

" Blessed are ye when men shall hate you,
and when they shall separate you from their
company, and shall reproach you, and cast out
your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake.
Rejoice ye in that da}^, and leap for joy : for
behold your reward is great in Heaven : for in
the like manner did their fathers unto the
prophets." ^

And then follows the contrast :

^ S. Luke vi. 20-23.

WORLDLY POPULARLTY. 23

But "Woe unto you when all men shall
speak well of you ; for in the same manner
did their fathers unto the false prophets."

I. With reference to the Woe which we are
to consider to-day, a comparison of the balanc-
ing and antithetical Blessing is specially im-
portant ; for it at once shows that the Woe on
Worldly Popularity is uttered in no misan-
thropic spirit of mere contempt for the opinion
of others. The reproach, the evil-speaking,
in which Christ bade His disciples rejoice,
must arise for one cause only—'' for righteous-
ness sake," as S. Matthew gives the Beatitude,
"for the Son of Man's sake," in S. Luke's
version.

Note the exact expression. Our Lord does
not simply say, "for My sake," in loyalty to
Me as a personal Master. That would indeed
have been sufficient. But He, as it were, ex-
plains and vindicates His claim to that loyalty,
even in the face of persecution, by the title by
which He describes Himself, "for the Son of
Man's sake;" for the sake of the Ideal Man,
in Whom righteousness is perfectly realized.

It is for loyalty to this pattern, for faith-
fulness to this revelation, and for that alone,
that persecution or reproach is to be prized.
There is no sort of encouragement given by
our Lord's words to a wilful setting at nought

24 THE GOSPEL WOES.

of others* opinions, still less to a heedless in-
curring of odium, which may only be the
token of pride and self-assertion at once in-
tolerant and intolerable. Our Religion ought
to recommend us to others, and we should
recommend it. So in the face of heathen sus-
picion believers in Christ are warned by S.
Peter, ** Let none of you suffer as an evil-
doer, or as a busybody ; " ' they are bidden to
have their behavior seemly among all, that
with well-doing they might put to silence the
ignorance of foolish and malicious men.^ We
are to take care that our good be not evil
spoken of.' Christian slaves were expressly
bidden to adorn the doctrine of God our Sa-
viour in all things.* Christian women wedded
to unbelieving husbands without the Word
were to win their spouses to the faith of Christ
by their own chaste and gentle conduct.^
Christian clergy must have a good report of
them that are without ;® giving no offence in
anything, but in all things approving them-
selves as the ministers of Christ.''

Of Jesus our Lord we are told that in His
boyhood and youth He increased as in wisdom
and stature so in favor both with God and

^ I Pet. iv. 15. 'i Pet. ii. 12, 15.

2 Rom. xiv. 16. ^ Tit. ii. 10.

5 I Pet. iii. I. 5 1 Tim. iii.';. ' 2 Cor. vi. 3, 4.

WORLDLY POPULARLTY, 2$

man.' When He entered on His ministry rJl
wondered at His gracious words.' The people
were drawn to Him, and on two occasions at
least would have made Him their king had
He been willing.' They welcomed Him to
Jerusalem at the last Passover with enthusiasm.
It was His popularity which stirred the chief
priests' envy and led them to plot His death.'

It is not then, mark you, absolutely, "Woe
unto you when men speak well of you." There
is a human favor which if we are not actually
to seek it, we certainly must take care that we
do nothing to forfeit. S. Paul made himself
all things to all men that he might win some
to Christ.' Our Lord worked a miracle to
provide the tribute money to avoid offending
the Jews, who would not recognize or under-
stand His claim to exemption from the tax."
Of Daniel his enemies said, "We shall not
find any occasion against this Daniel, except
we find it against him concerning the law of
his God.'" More than this we may be quite
sure there is something wrong if ^// speak ill of
us ; if our religion does not make us lovable.

My brethren, is it so, we may well ask, with
us, in our family and household circle, with
our friends, with those with whom we have

J S. Luke ii. 52. ' S. Luke iv. 22.

3 S. John vi. 15 ; xii. 13. * S. Matt, xxvii. 18.

^ I Cor. ix. 22. " S. Matt. xvii. 27. "^ Dan. vi. 5.

26 THE GOSPEL WOES.

business relations and contact ? Are we free
from blame save for our religion ? And are
we adorning that religion ? The Christian be-
liever surely should be one who can be relied
on in all the relations of life for integrity and
honor, for faithfulness and diligence, for
courtesy and gentleness, for unselfishness and
courage. Our religion must certainly be no
sort of excuse for a disagreeable manner or dis-
obliging temper, or for the neglect of ordinary
duties. The reproach on which a blessing is
promised is only that which comes "for the
Son of Man's sake." Reproach deserved is
not reproach " for righteousness sake." Per-
secution that we bring on ourselves is, one
might say, no persecution. Persecution is
that which comes on us because we are living
true to God, without our having done any-
thing to provoke it. Persecution and re-
proach must be neither sought nor provoked.
As in the early days of the Church's conflict
with the Roman Empire, when subject to open
persecution, the faithful were forbidden to
offer themselves for martyrdom or to court
persecution, so must it always be. Persecu-
tion is to be allowed to come ; and we are to
be prepared for it. For it will surely come.

II. Hitherto I have been guarding against
a misinterpretation of our Lord's words — not

WORLDLY POPULARITY. 2/

I think without reason. But what do they
mean? He does not say, "Woe unto you
when men speak well of you." Human judg-
ment we are not altogether to despise. The
good are to approve. He does say, " Woe
unto you when all men speak well of you."
We are in the midst of a fallen world — a
"naughty world," as our Prayer Book more
than once happily phrases it — a world ruled
by untrue principles, with false standards,
dominated by a lying and deceiving spirit.'
The majority of men, the mass of mankind,
are not ruled by the Spirit of God. Their
standards are different from those which
Christ set up. Tlieir Beatitudes differ from
those which He pronounced. A pleasure-
loving, selfish, proud, ambitious w^orld can-
not but dislike, fear, hate the really Chris-
tian character described in the Beatitudes
of Jesus Christ, the temper of mind which
thinks little of the world's greatest prizes,
which longs for that which it contemns. Such
a character and temper must expect the
world's censure and scorn. The question is
not, How shall we, if true to Christ, incur
odium and reproach ? But rather. How shall
we not ?

The Book of Wisdom describes the attitude

'^S. John xiv. 30 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; i S. John v. 19.

28 THE GOSPEL WOES.

of the world toward the righteous man. When
he is seen, the world will say of him :

'* He is not for our turn, he is clean con-
trary to our doings. He was made to reprove
our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even
to behold : for his life is not like other men's,
his ways are of another fashion." *

The world resents, quite naturally, that
which by raising another and higher standard
condemns its own practice. " Everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."^
Accordingly our Lord explained to His dis-
ciples the reason of the enmity which they
were to be prepared to meet with from the
world. " If ye were of the world, the world
would love his own ; but because ye are not
of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you." ^
You know it, my brethren. The offence of the
Cross has not ceased. All that will live godly
in Christ Jesus, now as in the days of the
Apostles, must be prepared to suffer perse-
cution. The form of the conflict may be
changed. Distinctive Christianity must be re-
garded by society people, by the club loun-
ger, with dislike, with hatred. The Christian

^ Wisd. ii. 12 sq. ^ S. John iii. 2o.

' S. John XV, 19, 20 ; cf. i S. John iv. 5, 6.

WORLDLY POPULARLTY. 29

is called to live for nobler aims, by a stricter
and more lofty standard, as well as with more
inspiring motives than the world recog-
nizes. He will be regarded as over-partic-
ular, straight-laced, narrow, and unpractical.
The preaching of Cliristian doctrine, of the
necessity of mortification, of the emptiness of
worldly goods must ever be unpopular. In
one sense a degenerate Christendom will resent
the preaching of the truth more keenly than
the Pagan world, for it will have an uneasy
feeling that it has fallen from its true ideal.

III. We see then perhaps more clearly the
force and application of our Lord's words.
They teach us certainly this, to distrust the
world's good opinion, to be suspicious of our-
selves if there be not some element in us
which provokes its resentment. General pop-
ularity was that which was given, our Lord
says, to the False Prophets, to such as consent-
ed to prophesy not right things, but to speak
smooth things, and prophesy deceits.' You will
remember the story in the Book of Kings of
Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah and the false
prophets who encouraged Ahab to go up to
Ramoth-gilead, and of Micaiah the son of
Imlah, who was hated by King Ahab, because

' Isa. XXX. 10.

30 THE GOSPEL WOES,

he did not prophesy good things concerning
him.^ The applause and favor of the world
is always given to that which is on the side of
the world. The false prophets were popular
because they said what they were wanted to
say. They gave a sort of religious sanction to
the follies of the people, they made things
easy. And then they passed away, leaving
little mark behind them. They are contrasted
with the true prophets, those who really spoke
in the name of the Lord, who in their life
were met with persecution, reproach, reviling.
Such was Elijah.^ Such were those com-
memorated in the list of Old Testament
worthies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, '' who
had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings,
of bonds and imprisonments ; who were
stoned, sawn asunder, tried, slain with the
sword, of whom the world was not worthy." "
Such has been the treatment of Prophets of
God — forthtellers of His truth, proclaimers of
His mind and will — in every age. They are,
like scientific discoverers or great political
reformers, before their time, above their fel-
lows. And because they attack vested inter-
ests and vested prejudices they incur the odi-
um of those who do not wish to be disturbed.

* I Kings xxii. ' i Kings xviii. 17, i8 ; xxi. 20.

3 Heb. xi. 36-38.

WORLD L Y POP ULARITY. 3 1

The Prophets of God are persecuted during
their earthly life. But their names live on in
honor. After generations build their sepul-
chres.' We must learn to appeal from man's
judgment, partial, imperfect, superficial, to
God's Who tries the reins and the heart ; and
learn too to appeal from man's judgment now
while so uninformed, to his judgment calm
and impartial in history, or in the last great
day. The world builds the sepulchres of the
Prophets whom during their life it slighted ;
it raises memorials in their honor. You will
gain respect by acting independently, by
brave adherence to principle, as most certain-
ly you will forfeit it by truckling to public
opinion. What more fatal snare than Popu-
larity-hunting for the writer, who writes down
to the people ; for the statesman, who dares
not withstand the temporary current of opin-
ion ? The fate of such is a fulfilment in the
lower sphere of our Lord's words, "Woe unto
you when all men speak well of you, for so
did their fathers unto the false prophets." It
has been remarked^ as a singular feature in
the career of the lamented Dr. Lightfoot, the
Bishop of Durham, that " he was one of the few

' S. Matt, xxiii. 29.

2 By Archdeacon Farrar in a Memorial Notice of Bishop
Lightfoot in the Contemporary Review for February, 1890.

32 THE GOSPEL WOES.

who all his life long seems to have escaped from
the stings of malice and detraction. Many pub-
lic men of the present day, as in all ages, have
lived for years amid incessant attacks of which
they themselves are often unable to account for
the bitterness. In not a few it happens, and has
happened, to spend their lives in 'the oppres-
sion of a perpetual hissing.' Take the case of
four of the most prominent divines of latter
days, Dr. Pusey, Canon Kingsley, Professor
Maurice, and Dean Stanley. Their personal
experience would have led them to ratify the
verdict of the Laureate,

' Each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous
flies.'

During many years Dr. Pusey passed through
hurricanes of abuse. Canon Kingsley, as he
tells us in one of his letters, was at more than
one period of his career ' cursed like a dog'
in the public prints, and the chief religious
newspaper of the day said of his strong and
tender story ' Yeast,' that ' he taught immo-
rality and insinuated Atheism.'" And, the
writer goes on to say, in speaking of Bishop
Lightfoot's singular felicity in escaping an-
tagonism, ''it is a blessed lot for those
by whom it is w^on legitimately and without
compromise. But if anyone be led to seek
it by unhallowed means — by steering between

WORLDLY POPULARITY. 33

the Scylla and Charybdis of Yes and No — or
acquiring a reputation for safety and modera-
tion by never stating a proposition without
carefully protecting himself from seeming to
exclude the contradictory — he is not following
the great Bishop's example. Whatever be
the rare exceptions, Christ's rule holds all but
universally true, *Woe unto you when all
men shall speak well of you.' The rule is
normal. Every now and then we seem to see
exceptions."*

Let me give three practical rules by way
of applying what has been said :

I. Do not seek for popularity. That is, never
set this before you as an end. If all were right,
if all had eyes to see and ears to hear, it ought

' I may be allowed to quote the following from an arti-
cle on "The late Dean of S. Paul's," from the Guardian
of December 17, 1890 : "We are told to be on our guard
when ' all men speak well of us ; ' and rightly ; for no situ-
ation can be more morally perilous. Yet now and again we
are allowed the privilege of seeing and loving characters
who are so far removed from all taint of the perils of pop-
ularity that they can be safely permitted to receive the trib-
ute of universal and unbroken praise, and to move, in flaw-
less serenity, along a path which few could tread unharmed.
It was so with Richard William Church. Not a breath of
anger, not a word of blame, not a sound of wrangling criti-
cism breaks the silence round his quiet grave in the green
uplands of his Somersetshire village."

34 THE GOSPEL WOES.

to follow, just as pleasure should follow the
right exercise of any of our faculties, and in a
perfectly healthy condition of body and mind
will follow. Accept it, be grateful for it, if it
comes. But never make it an end.

2. Be always ready to sacrifice it. That is, to
use it. Continually we are tempted for fear
of losing influence to shrink from using it.
The words of Mordecai to Esther are always
applicable : *' Who knoweth whether thou
didst not come to the kingdom for such a
time as this ?" ^ For what is influence or fa-
vor given if not to be used — and if necessary
sacrificed. We must go forward like Esther.
" If I perish, I perish."

3. Distrust popularity. It is not worth much.
It is so vain and evanescent.

** Hosanna now, to-morrow Crucify
The changeful burden still of their rude, lawless cry." "^

Jesus our Lord, Who knew what was in
man would not commit Himself to men.^

Always and everywhere Public Opinion
must needs contain certain, perhaps consider-
able, elements of truth. But we cannot sur-
render ourselves to it, defer to it absolutely.

1 Esth. iv. 14.

'^ Christian Year for the First Sunday in Advent.

2 S. John ii. 24, 25.

WORLDLY POPULARITY. 35

For consider how this Public Opinion is
formed : it is practically the result of a gen-
eral subscription ; it is the workmanship of all
the human beings who go to make up society
or a section of society. The wise, the expe-
rienced, the conscientious, the disinterested,
contribute toward it. But also the reckless,
the unprincipled, the foolish, the selfish, have
their share in producing it, a larger share, the
world being what it is, than their nobler ri-
vals/

4. And one word for Lent. We are called
to withdraw at this time from the distractions
of society, to enter into our chamber and
commune with our own heart and be still, to
judge ourselves by the true standard. We
will pray, " Try Thou me, O God, and seek
Thou the ground of my heart." ^

And lest we should incur this Woe pro-
nounced by our Lord on Worldly Popularity,

"Pray we our Lord, one pang to send
Of deep, remorseful fear
For every smile of partial friend. —
Praise be our Penance here. " ^

' Christ'' s Service and Public Opinion, in Dr. Liddon's
2d Series of University Sermons, p. 160.
^ Ps. cxxxix. 23.
2 Mr. Keble's Lyra Innocentiu7n^ "Danger of Praise."

III.

THE WOE ON THE ABUSE OF RE-
LIGIOUS PRIVILEGES.

"Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of
his mighty works were done, because they repented not :

"Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida !
for if the mighty works which were done in you had been
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long
ago in sackcloth and ashes.

"But I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre
and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.

"And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven,
shalt be brought down to hell : for if the mighty works,
which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day. But I say unto
you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in
the day of judgment, than for thee." — S. Matt. xi. 20-24.

Concerning this great rhythmic Woe, as it
has been called, the Woe on the Abuse of Re-
ligious Privileges, there are two or three pre-
liminary points that we shall do well to note
before going on to consider the great moral
law of God's dealings therein declared, and its
application to ourselves.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 3/

I. The words are recorded both by S. Mat-
thew and by S. Luke, but in a different con-
nection. In S. Matthew they follow immedi-
ately on our Lord's upbraiding of the people
for their rejection alike of John the Baptist
and of Himself, although He and His pre-
cursor appealed to men's consciences by such
very different methods. From John the ascetic
prophet they turned away as from a gloomy
demoniac — he was too severe — " he hath a
devil." The Son of Man, Who entered into
freer intercourse with the people, and sought
to commend His words to their acceptance by
His sweetness and affability, they accused of
laxity. " Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-
bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
This incident would naturally recall to S.
Matthew the other words in which our Lord
" upbraided the cities where most of His
mightyworks were done, because they repented
not."

But S. Luke directly connects the utterance
of the Woe with the Mission of the Seventy
Disciples whom our Lord, late in His ministry,
shortly before His final approach to Jerusalem,
sent before His face into every city and place
whither He Himself was about to come.^ And
this would seem with little doubt to be the

' See S. Luke x. 1-20.

38 THE GOSPEL WOES.

real historical setting of the utterance. The
words have about them something of the
nature of a Farewell, or at least of a final
solemn warning, when our Lord's work in this
part of the country was practically finished.
" The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and ye are not saved."' ''Woe unto thee,
Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if
the mighty works had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, which have been done in you, they had
a great while ago repented, sitting in sack-
cloth and ashes."

2. It is remarkable that we have no miracles
recorded in any of the Four Gospels as having
been worked at either Chorazin or Bethsaida,*
where Jesus says so many mighty works had
been wrought. Now this is noticeable for
two reasons:

a. It is a good illustration of the fragmen-
tary character of the Gospel narratives. They
do not profess, singly or together, to give a
whole " Life of Christ." They are rather four
" Memoirs." Sayings and doings of His are
recorded such as had specially impressed
themselves on the minds of His disciples ; or
such as each Evangelist selected from the mass

' Jer. viii. 2o.

' The Bethsaida (Julias) of S. Mark vi. 45 was almost
certainly a different place.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 39

of material at his disposal as being particu-
larly suitable for his special purpose. You
will remember the concluding words of S.
John's Gospel: ''There are also many other
things which Jesus did, the which if they
should be written every one, I suppose that
even the world itself could not contain the
books that should be written : " a bold hyper-
bolical expression if taken literally, but an-
swering to a deep truth, for a complete account
of the perfect human life of the Lord would
be practically infinite. ^

h. Then, also, the absence from the narrative
of the miracles referred to in this utterance
of our Lord is a valuable though incidental
witness, all the more valuable because inci-
dental, to the genuineness of the Gospels.
Had the story been legendary most assuredly
it would not have been so artless. Jesus
would not be represented as selecting the
names of places which the writer had not con-
nected with the legend.'

3. A third point of this kind I would call
your attention to, the literal fulfilment of our
Lord's denunciation. The very sites of Beth-
saida and Chorazin cannot be fixed with cer-

1 So Westcott on S. John xxi. 25.

2 See Edersheim, Life and Times of fesus the Messiah^
Vol. II., p. 138.

40 THE GOSPEL WOES.

tainty. Probably they were smaller cities,
suburbs as we might say, one on each side,
north and south, of Capernaum. Of Caper-
naum itself a writer says, *' Standing on a vast
field of ruin and upturned stones which marks
the site of the modern Tell Hwn, we feel that
no description could be more pictorially true
than that in which Christ prophetically likened
the city in its downfall to the desolateness of
death and Hades." '

This last observation leads to the remark
that our Lord's words are apparently to be
understood as having reference, primarily at
any rate, to the temporal punishment and de-
struction that would come upon these cities in
their day of judgment and visitation, as upon
Sodom and Gomorrah, upon Tyre and Sidon,
in earlier ages, rather than to the eternal
destruction of the souls of their inhabitants.
" There is, it is important to remember, a
visitation of vengeance or the contrary, on
nations, cities, tribes, even families in this life,
which is quite irrespective of the eternal
award on individual souls." ^ We are by no
means bound to suppose that all who perished
in the Flood, or in the overthrow of the Cities
of the Plain, or in later judicial catastrophes,

* Edersheim, II., 139.

" Rev. M. F. Sadler, Commentary on S. Matthew^ in loc.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 4 1

were eternally lost. Rather we may hope
that in many cases the destruction of tlie flesh
was for the saving of the spirit in the day of
the Lord Jesus/

At the same time, of course, this temporal
punishment and ruin was a type and foreshad-
owing of the last great Day of Judgment
when all accounts shall be settled, ''the day
of wrath amd revelation of the righteous judg-
ment of God, who will render to every man
according to his deeds." ' It was such a type
because it was an illustration of a general law
of God's dealing, of the absolute justice of
God's dealings with all. That Justice con-
tains within itself the element of Mercy ; for it
takes all circumstances into account. Think
of it.

" Tyre and Sidon had their full share of the
degradations which in all ages have been the
curse of seaport towns, and their religion, in-
stead of doing anything to raise them, was of
a character still further to degrade and brutal-
ize them. The Phoenician worship of Nature
in the form which it took in these ancient
cities was little better than a prolonged,
though disguised, appeal to the worst appe-
tites of cruelty and lust. And yet, as our
Lord surveyed the towns on or near the brink

' See I Cor. v. 5. 2 ^^^^ -^^ ^^ ^

42 THE GOSPEL WOES.

of the Sea of Galilee — Chorazin and Bethsaida
— and considered how in them, as the ruins of
the synagogue of the neighboring Caperna-
um attest at this hour, the worship of the true
God was splendidly provided for, and how
again and again each of them had listened to
His teaching and had witnessed His miracles,
He uttered one of the most startling judg-
ments of the Gospel. If the degraded pagans
of the Phoenician seaboard had only had the
advantages of the favored Galilean towns,
they would long ago have turned with deep,
heart-searching penitence to God." ^

Here you see is the great moral law de-
clared, that Judgjnent is according to Opportun-
ities. This is to be laid to heart both for con-
solation and for warning.

I. The Judge of all the earth will most as-
suredly, we know, do right.^ We are troubled
and perplexed sometimes when we think of
the multitudes of the heathen to whom the
knowledge of God in Jesus Christ has not
been vouchsafed, of the number of people
round about us who are strangers to the Cath-
olic Faith. Am I to regard all such as inev-
itably lost because they believe not ? Most
certainly not. Judgment is according to op-

* From a Sermon of Dr. Liddon's at S. Paul's Cathedral.
^ Gen. xviii. 25.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 43

portunity. There are the many stripes for
those who knew and did not their Lord's will,
the few stripes for those who did it not be-
cause they knew it not.' " He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved : but he that
disbelieveth shall be condemned." ' Erase, I
pray you, the erroneous translation of the
Authorized Version, " he that believeth not."
There is a wnde difference between a posi-
tion of negative unbelief and that of positive
disbelief. The original implies active, not
merely negative unbelief. It is he who re-
jecteth the Gospel when it is fairly brought be-
fore him, refusing belief and obedience, who
is condemned. And this, remember, involves
a good deal more than mere local contiguity.
There may be inherited prejudices, a practi-
cal want of opportunity, the absence of a fair
presentation, which in God's judgment excuse
many whom we might be tempted to condemn
as unbelievers. To speak thus is not, I would
beg you to note, to say that one religion is as
good as another, or, in the language of one of
our Articles of Religion,' that every man shall
be saved by the Law or Sect which he profess-
eth, so that he be diligent to frame his life ac-
cording to that Law and the light of Nature.

^ S. Luke xii. 47, 48. ^ 5. Mark xvi. 16.

3 Art. XVIII.

44 THE GOSPEL WOES.

" Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the
Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be
saved." But the question is, How and when
men may be brought into saving union with
Christ ? The Sacraments of the Church are the
ordinary and appointed channels of grace. But
because we are tied to their use God is not
tied to use no other means. His grace can
overflow its accustomed banks. And we may
well hope with regard to those who have been
true, amid whatever imperfections, to the light
which the Word, who is the light of every
man that cometh into the world,' hath given,
that He has means in another world of com-
municating to them the fulness of Christian
grace and truth, the light of the Incarnate
Word which here they had not known.

God, we are sure, will reject none who do
not reject Him. He will lose none whom He
can save.

H. Along with the consolation and encour-
agement suggested by the knowledge that
judgment is and will be according to opportu-
nity, there is for warning a corresponding ax-
iom : From them to whom much is given shall
much be required.' God does not expect to
reap where He has not sown, or to gather

» S. John i. 9. ' S. Luke xii. 48.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 45

where He has not strawed. But He does look
to reap where and as He has sown.^ The more
opportunity, the greater the responsibility.
The greater the privileges, the more abundant
should be the fruit. We are so apt to rest in
privileges. The Jewish boast, "We be Abra-
ham's seed," ^ is continually repeated by Chris-
tian believers. The question for us is. What
is our faith doing for us ? What is it enabling
us to do and bear ? Do we live by faith ? Are
we building up ourselves, our moral and spir-
itual life, on the foundation of our most holy
faith ? As members of the Christian Church
are we, in correspondence with the twofold
meaning and derivation of the word," seen to
be separated from the world, living by a high-
er standard, with higher aims, by a higher
power, because we are united with the Lord,
living members of His mystical Body, animat-
ed and quickened by His Spirit ? As claiming
fellowship through an unbroken line of minis-
try with the Apostles do we manifest a moral
kinship with those whom we claim as spiritual
ancestors ? Do we show in our lives the trans-
forming power of Sacraments as real means of
grace — not charms ? Many, we are warned.

1 S. Matt. XXV. 24. 'S. John viii. 33.

^ 'EKK\r)(T[a, called out of the World ; KvpiaK^, dedicated
to the Lord.

46 THE GOSPEL WOES.

will say, " Lord, Lord, we have eaten and
drunk in Thy presence, Thou hast taught in
our streets, we have even done many wonder-
ful works in Thy name," to whom the Lord
will reply, " Depart from me, I never knew
you, ye workers of iniquity." ^

Are we to be indifferent, then, for ourselves
or for others to the privileges which are
offered ? God forbid. We must use them to
the uttermost. We cannot, if we would, make
ourselves as the heathen.^ " The Word that
I have spoken, it shall judge you at the last
day." ^ Nor dare we in a cowardly and un-
generous fashion hold back from seeking to
win others to what we prize for ourselves.
Not with scorn or disdain but with love and
pity will we regard those who are without.
They lose so much. Their life is so much
poorer. They are deprived of what would
give strength in temptation, consolation in
trouble, a brighter hope for the future.

Two thoughts, one doctrinal and one per-
sonal, let me suggest in conclusion.

(i) In this comparison between Chorazin
and Bethsaida on the one side, and Tyre and
Sidon on the other, mark the claim of Jesus

'S. Matt. vii. 21-23. ^ Ezek. xx. 32.

3 S. John xii. 48.

ABUSE OF RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES. 4/

Christ to the possession of absolute and per-
fect knowledge, in a word, to Divine Omnis-
cience. We instinctively appeal from man's
fallible, superficial, partial opinion to the uner-
ring, penetrating judgment of Almighty God.
It is right that we should do so. We con-
sidered this last Sunday. But Jesus Christ
claims not only to award the due recompense,
the final doom for weal or woe to all ; He
claims, moreover, to know how they would
have acted, w^hat each would have been, in
other circumstances than those with which
God actually surrounded them. Is such
language, we can but ask, consistent with
intellectual modesty, with real moral goodness
in any merely created being ? Do not the
words furnish an evidence of His Divine
Nature and Person ? This thought I have
often developed ; I need not now expand it ;
but I would ask you seriously to consider it.

(2) Jesus Christ knows what we could not
know, whether you or I would do better or
worse than we do, if we were placed by Him
in other than our present circumstances. He
knows this, because He knows our inmost
dispositions and sees us as we are. We are
often tempted to think that if only our lot had
been cast in some other age or amid different
surroundings, the battle would have been so
much easier. It is an idle thought. We shall

48 THE GOSPEL WOES.

be — we are — judged by Him according to our
works, and according to our opportunities, in
our actual circumstances, all of which He
perfectly understands. " I know thy works,"
He says, **and where thou dwellest." * May
He then give us grace to use the grace, to
correspond with the opportunities that He
affords.

^ Rev. ii. 13.

IV.

THE WOE ON OFFENCES.

'* Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must
needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by
whom the offence cometh ! "— S. Matthew xviii. 7.

In treating this Woe (recorded, it is worth
while to remember, in each of the three earlier
Gospels ' ) it can hardly be necessary to ex-
plain that "offence," the noun, and "offend,"
the verb, in New Testament language refer
not to a wrong done to us, in the ordinary sense,
but to something by which we are led to do
wrong, though this is indeed the greatest
wrong that can be done to us. An offence is
a stumbling-block ; to offend is to put a stum-
bling-block in another's path. So the verse
that I read is better translated, for modern ears
at any rate, in the Revised Version :

«'Woe unto the world because of occasions of stum-
bling ! for it must needs be that the occasions come ; but
woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh ! "

1 With the text compare S. Mark ix. 42 ; S. Luke xvii. i.
4

50 THE GOSPEL WOES.

I. With this understanding of the words who
will wonder at the utterance of this Woe by
our Lord — both as a lamentation and as a de-
nunciation, in sorrow and in judgment ? Why,
that which He laments and denounces is the
very hindrance and obstacle to the work He
came to do. He came as a Moral Reformer ;
to raise the fallen, to cheer the sorrowful, to
heal the wounded, to abolish sin, to give or
restore health, moral and spiritual well-being.
That we " might have life, and have it more
abundantly,"^ for this He gave His life, in
toil, in poverty, in witness, in wrestling with
evil. He is the Saviour, from sin, mind you,
from moral evil, which is the real and funda-
mental cause of sorrow and misery in the
world ; He is the Restorer of true health.'
And over against Him is one whose name is
** the Destroyer," the angel of the abyss, a
murderer from the beginning, the prince of
this world.'

*' Alas ! alas ! " the Saviour cries, " for the
World under the rule, so cruel and so crafty,
of its wily Prince, who murders through his
lies, casting a glamour over his victims, cov-
ering so skilfully his stumbling-blocks, bait-
ing so attractively his snares. In the World,
so fallen, so ruled, causes of stumbling, occa-

> S. John X. lo. 2 s. Matt. L 21.

2 Rev. ix. II. ; S. John viii. 44 ; xiv. 30.

OFFENCES. 5 1

sions of sin, must needs be ! but Woe," He
adds, and here surely He speaks not in sym-
pathy but in judgment, "Woe to that man
through whom the occasion cometh ! "

Such an one, whether consciously or uncon-
sciously, is doing the Devil's work. He is
used by Satan as a tool and agent in his work
of destruction. Think of it, my brethren ;
w^henever you or I have tempted another to
do wrong, in whatever way, put a stumbling-
block, of whatever kind, in another's path, we
were doing the Devil's work ; we were doing
our part to frustrate the work of Jesus Christ,
Who " was manifested to destroy the works of
the Devil." '

The Church as the Body, the Spouse, of
Christ is to further His interests, to carry on
His healing, saving work. The World, as the
Harlot, the slave of the Evil One is used by
him as his tool in his work of moral destruc-
tion.^"

No wonder then, I say, that the Saviour
pronounced this Woe ; that He declared in
words that immediately precede the text,
** Whoso shall cause to stumble one of these
little ones — children in years or innocence, or
weak believers — it were better for him that a
great millstone — not the ordinary light stone

' I S. John iii. 8.

^ See the contrast in Rev. xvii. and xix.

52 THE GOSPEL WOES.

used by women in grinding, but a larger stone
drawn by an ass — should be hanged about his
neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths
of the sea."

Such a death was not a recognized punish-
ment according to the Jewish Law ; but it was
in occasional use, for great criminals, among
both Greeks and Romans. It is said that the
Romans had inflicted the punishment, not long
before, on some in Galilee, perhaps on some
of the ringleaders of the insurrection under
Judas of Galilee. Our Lord's words would
then have come home with a special vividness
to the minds of His hearers. The infamy He
would mean of causing to stumble morally, of
leading into sin, a single "little one " belong-
ing to Him was as great as that of those whose
crimes brought on them this exceptional pun-
ishment. It would be better rather than incur
this guilt to be plunged into the depths of the
sea. The peculiar horror of the punishment,
both for Jews and heathen, consisted in this,
that the body thus weighted, when plunged into
deep water, could not possibly be rescued for
burial, and the absence of burial rites was sup-
posed to affect the condition of the soul.

II. Now before we consider some of the
different ways in which we may incur this
Woe, I would ask you to notice a point of

OFFENCES. 53

contact, and to a certain extent of collision,
with some modern ideas presented by these
words of our Lord. He shows Himself, if I
may so speak, abreast of modern thought so
far as facts are concerned ; while His words
reprove a certain infer encev^\\\z\i men are some-
times tempted to draw from those facts.

"The two clauses ' It must needs be that
occasions of stumbling come,' * but woe unto
that man through whom the occasion cometh,'
unite (it has been well said ' ) in strange con-
trast the two truths which all the history of
human guilt brings before us. Crimes seem
to run with something like the inevitable regu-
larity of a law, and yet in each single instance
the will of the offender has been free to choose,
and he is therefore rightly held responsible
both by Divine and human laws."

Some modern philosophers point us to the
existence of sin in the mass ; they claim to be
able to estimate the average amount of crime,
and of different crimes, by statistics : then they
would infer from this that there is in reality
no such thing as Freedom of Will, that what
we call "sins" are merely the natural results
of circumstances — of heredity and environment

* Dean Plumptre, in Ellicott's TV. T. Commentary for
English Readers, on the text. See also Dean Mansel in
The Speaker''s Cofntnentary. Compare Luthardt, Saving
Truths of Christianity, Lect. II., p. 71.

54 THE GOSPEL WOES.

and so forth ; they deny any responsibility for
our actions.

Against such a theory, of course, any healthy
conscience rebels, whether or no we be able
to answer the intellectual problem. We know
that our actions have been our own, that we
did them, that we consented to the suggestion,
whether of good or evil, made it our own, exe-
cuted it. We hold ourselves responsible, un-
less we have played tricks on our moral in-
stincts. But it is well to see the intellectual
fallacy of the argument.

Now the kind of law, if it may be so called,
which is established by such statistical calcula-
tions is of a totally different kind from those
natural laws which indicate an unvarying se-
quence of cause and effect. These are based
on induction. The law is inferred from a
generalization, from its observance being no-
ticed in all known individual cases. But the
other kind of law, the law of criminal sta-
tistics, is altogether different. Here all that
we have are statements of general uniformity
observed in masses only, and not in individuals.
The individual variations are lost sight of
owing to the large scale on which the calcula-
tion is made. But it is in the individual that
the operation of the will is found to be influ-
enced by grace, refined by a nobler, better
motive, that it rises from a lower to a higher

OFFENCES. 55

level, or sinks from a truer to a poorer stand-
ard of life.

Woe, then, to the world because of offences !
"Through man's abuse of his free will such
offences have ever been, ever will be, in this
world of trial. But they are a heavy woe to
the world, on whom they come ; they are a
heavier woe to the man, through whom they
come." ^

III. To pass on. There are three chief
ways, it seems to me, in which a person may
cause others to stumble, and so incur this
Woe, three groups^ so to speak, of stumbling-
blocks^ or causes of offence.

I. Worst of all are those cases in which a
person deliberately sets himself to trip an-
other, to lead him into sin ; or at least wan-
tonly takes the risk of doing so. This may be
in various ways, with various motiv^es.

An accomplice may be necessary — for differ-
ent kinds of wrong-doing ; or it may be hoped
by another's aid more easily to escape detec-
tion ; or the very sense of being unlike to
others may lead to the desire to make them
like one's self ; or with more or less heartless-
ness persons may repudiate any responsibility
for the possible effect of their example or

* Dr. Pusey, in a sermon on ' ' Murder of Souls " in his
University and Cathedral Sermons^ p. 364.

56 THE GOSPEL WOES.

conduct on others. '*If others choose to take
offence, or to be influenced by me, that is
their concern, not mine ; am I my brother's
keeper?"

In London there is a famous exhibition —
dear to children, visited probably by some
of you — Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, where
life-size and life-like representations are found
of all the celebrities of the world — royal per-
sonages, statesmen, generals, and such like —
and criminals. For there is a separate room
called "The Chamber of Horrors," where fig-
ures are preserved of notorious murderers (the
heads taken, I believe, from casts made after
execution), whose crimes and trials have ex-
cited widespread interest. Here, for instance,
is the cold-blooded murderer who allured his
victim to some lonely spot, and then fell on
him and slaughtered him, for plunder and ra-
pine. There is a calculating poisoner, with
perhaps a whole group of victims. My breth-
ren, may we not recognize with a shudder
the counterpart of such criminals in soul-
murderers ? Does conscience whisper to any,
** Thou mightest have a place, in the sight
of Heaven, in such a spiritual Chamber of
Horrors ? "

Look. Here is a seducer who has set him-
self to work the ruin of the innocent object of
his passion. He plots, he bribes, he hides his

OFFENCES. 57

hand, and at last he accomplishes his purpose.
A soul is killed; a character is lost ; physical
consequences are perhaps involved. And
then — is he responsible for anything that may
follow ?

But the gratification of passion is not the
only incentive to such blood-guiltiness. For
the gratification of vanity, or for filthy lucre's
sake, men and women will write that which
will bring them money or fame, with little
regard to the effect on the faith or life of their
readers. Here is a vain person with a certain
power of thought and of expression. He will
write something startling — original perhaps
he would call it. It is sometimes a cheap
way of earning a reputation for smartness to
pour ridicule on the belief of others, to de-
nounce all that has been acknowledged, and
deny what has been generally affirmed. It
will cause distress, of course, to many earnest
souls, and rob of their comfort and stay some
who have a hard fight ; there will be a risk of
shipwrecks of faith among persons of little
stability, the " little ones " of whom Christ
speaks ; but what does that matter, or what
concern is that for the writer ? Only this,
"Woe unto him through whom the cause of
stumbling cometh !"

Let me give another illustration. There is
a young girl who means no manner of evil.

58 THE GOSPEL WOES.

Certainly not. But she " must have a little
fun," she cannot refrain from a harmless flir-
tation ; and if men are so evil that their pas-
sions are kindled, that they, when led on, get
beyond their own control, is that her fault?
Or if the extravagant following of a fashion
in dress, which certainly cannot be said to
be in exact agreement with the dictates of
Christian modesty, should suggest evil to
others — why, how — it is asked — can I be
blamed?

Amid such self-justifying reasoning I hear
the solemn tones of the Saviour's voice — Who
is also the Judge of men — "Woe to that man,
that woman, through whom the occasion of
stumbling cometh."

2. Besides what may be called Murder^ in the
first or second degree, we sometimes have a
verdict returned, not so often perhaps as
should be the case, of Culpable Negligence^ that
amounts to Manslaughter, as the cause of some
railroad disaster, or of some great conflagra-
tion, or of the collapse of a building through
faulty construction. Is there not a corre-
sponding sinful thoughtlessness and inconsid-
erateness with regard to others' moral and
spiritual well-being?

We are continually challenged in these days
to bring our religion to bear on matters of
daily life, not to keep it as something for the

OFFENCES. 59

Church, but to let it enter into social and civil
life. We, my brethren, who believe in the In-
carnation can have no hesitation in accepting
the challenge. For is it not the very law of
the Incarnation, to bring to bear the highest
motives and powers on the most ordinary com-
monplace matters? ''The Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us." ^ I shall not then
hesitate to apply our subject to questions of
Trade and Business. Whatever may be our
opinion or judgment upon certain theories and
plans, we shall all recognize that there is a
legitimate Christian Socialism, which is noth-
ing but Christianity applied to the social order,
and which is opposed alike to unchristian so-
cialism and to unsocial Christians.

Well, then, you draw dividends, the highest
you can get, from some railroad or other
stocks. You are a sleeping partner (deeply
slumbering perhaps) in some large business
concern. Do you ever think it necessary to
question how the company is able to pay these
large dividends ; whether the money is fair
and legitimate profit ; or whether it is wrung
out through the payment of starvation wages,
or by exacting hours of toil that practically
give no opportunity for moral and spiritual
improvement to the workers, who are regarded

» S. John i. 14.

60 THE GOSPEL WOES.

simply as "hands" and nothing more? In
your shopping do you persist in buying at the
lowest possible, or impossible prices, and in
patronizing stores where you know, or ought
to know, that wages are given which are in no
sense a fair recompense for the service ren-
dered, nor a fair day's wage for a fair day's
v^ork ? Are you not then in some degree re-
sponsible, with your theory of unrestricted
competition, for the dishonorable ways of sup-
plementing an income, of earning support for
others beside herself perhaps, to which the
poor girl is almost forced ?

" Competition," said the late Frederick
Denison Maurice in one of his prophet-like
utterances, " is put forth as the law of the uni-
verse. That is a lie. The time is come for us
to declare that it is a lie by word and deed." ^

Or as an owner of property are you doing
what you can to provide such proper house-
room as may be a safeguard for morality and
decency, or are you regardless of arrange-
ments which are a direct temptation to vice ?
In these and such like matters are there not
occasions of stumbling put in the way of those
whom Christ calls His little ones, to which
His words refer ? All, through thought-
lessness. Yes, but we are taught in the

'^ Life, vol. ii., p. 32.

OFFENCES. 6 1

Litany to pray to our Lord — the Saviour and
the Judge of men — for forgiveness of our sins,
negligences, and ignorances— thoughtless sins,
culpable negligences, inexcusable ignorance ;
and to pray, moreover, that by the aid of His
Holy Spirit — of love and truth and wisdom —
we may be enabled to amend our lives accord-
ing to His Holy Word and standard. And
what is that, but that we should think of, care
for others as we would that others should take
thought and care for us and for those who are
dear to us ?

3. One other kind of stumbling-block I
must not pass by, although there can be no
need to dwell on it at length, the sin is so
common and so generally recognized — the
stumbling-block of Inconsistency. The incon-
sistency of those '* who profess and call them-
selves Christians," but whose lives give the lie
to their profession, and whom others refuse
to recognize as Christians, if the designation
means disciples and followers of Jesus the
Christ. How often we fail, my brethren, at
any rate " to adorn the doctrine of God our
Saviour in all things," to recommend it to
others by our example ! ' Alas, we not only
fail to attract ; we even repel. We ourselves
are a stumbling-block in the way of others.

* Tit. ii. 10.

62 THE GOSPEL WOES.

Continually does a clergyman, when pressing
the claims of Christ upon someone's allegiance,
or urging the importance and value of the
Sacraments and the ordinances of religion,
have this thrown in his face : " Church mem-
bers are no better than other people ; So and
So has been confirmed, receives the Sacra-
ment ; but little good it does." Alas, alas !
Woe to him through whom the occasion of
stumbling cometh.

Not to speak of serious scandals, by our loss
of temper, by a peevish, complaining spirit
under trouble, by ill-concealed ambition, by
our miserable rivalry. Christian believers,
Church-people, clergymen, show how largely
our affections are fixed on things temporal,
often on things miserably petty, while we pro-
fess to be living in the light of a higher
world.

The excuse is, I know, often exaggerated,
always in a way unreasonable. Such incon-
sistencies, sad and distressing as they are,
afford no real excuse to another for holding
back. The abuse of religious privileges does
not prove that there is no value in them.
Rather a person's own sense of the incon-
sistency shows that he recognizes the true
ideal ; the abuse is a caution to him to be
downright, thorough, and whole-hearted in his
faith and obedience.

OFFENCES. 63

"The Scribes and the Pharisees," said our
Lord to the people, " sit in Moses' seat ; all
things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these
do and observe ; but do not ye after their
works, for they say, and do not." ^

The consideration of such w^ays of causing
others to stumble should surely, my brethren,
be a call to self-examination, to humiliation,
to earnest prayer. " Let not my brother, for
whom Christ died, be destroyed through my
sin." ' " Have mercy, Lord, on all with whom
I have at any time, in any way, shared in sin,
whether by counsel or provocation, by exam-
ple or co-operation. Grant that having sinned
together we may together repent, and together
find mercy with Thee, both now and at the
last." "

It is not inappropriate to our subject that
your offerings should be asked this morning
toward the support of the Sisters of S. Mar-
garet's Home.

Over against this Woe pronounced by our
Lord on him w^ho causes another to stumble,
there is a Blessing written at the end of the
Epistle of S. James. " My brethren," he says,
" if any among you do err from the truth, and

' S. Matt, xxiii. 2, 3. 2 Rom. xiv. 15.

^ See Manual of Intercessory Prayer, Collect 82 ; and
Bp. Andrewes' Devotions, for the Second Day.

64 THE GOSPEL WOES,

one convert him ; let him know that he which
converteth a sinner from the error of his way
shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a
multitude of sins."

The words are an encouragement and in-
centive to us all in any endeavor we may make
— by prayers, by alms, by labor, by example,
by the exertion of influence, by expostulation
— for others' moral and spiritual well-being.
The Church as a collective society is to carry
on our Lord's saving work. The words may
have a special application to those specially
dedicated to God's service, whether in the
Sacred Ministry or in what is called the Relig-
ious Life, giving themselves to works of mercy,
both corporal and spiritual. Let me mention
the chief works of this kind undertaken by the
Sisters of S. Margaret's. In Boston, besides
their Infirmaries and Embroidery Rooms, by
which, while ministering to others' needs and
working for the Sanctuary, they endeavor to
support themselves, the Children's Hospital
has been for eighteen years under their care,
and they have the charge, and to a large
extent the pecuniary responsibility for S.
Monica's Home, a small hospital for colored
people, for whom in regard of certain cases no
provision is made in our larger hospitals.
They have a large share in the work of S.
Augustine's Mission, and give valued help in

OFFENCES. 65

our Guilds and Sunday-School at St. John's.
Outside of Boston they are established in
five other large cities — in Washington, Phila-
delphia, Newark, Jersey City, and Montreal.
In four of these places the Sisters do parish
and mission work under the local clergy.^
They have charge of two large Hospitals ; ^ of
two Penitentiary institutions ; ' and of two
Homes for Sick or Aged People."

In each place they form a centre for Chris-
tian work, of Christian influence and devotion.
None of these different institutions is able to
do more than provide for the support of the
Sisters actually engaged in it ; the expenses of
the Mother House, where Sisters are trained,
and where various incidental works of charity
are carried on, have to be met by the Sisters
themselves, with the aid of friends and of the
faithful generally.

None I hope will be more conscious than
those who wear a special uniform marking
them out as dedicated to our Lord of the dan-

^ At S. James's, Washington j S. Mark's, Philadelphia ;
the House of Prayer, Newark ; S. John the Evangelist's,
Montreal.

^ S. Barnabas', Newark, and Christ Hospital, Jersey City.

^ S. Katharine's Home, Jersey City, and S. Margaret's
Nursery, Montreal.

* S. Mark's Home, Philadelphia, and S. Margaret's,
Montreal.

5

66 THE GOSPEL WOES.

ger of inconsistency and scandal. But amid
whatever imperfections the Sisters' desire and
intention is to devote themselves, after their
Lord's example and for His sake, to carry on
His work of mercy — helping, healing, restor-
ing, saving.

I ask for them your liberal help. Some
may be glad to make an offering as a loving
act of reparation for occasions of stumbling
that are remembered with sorrow in the past ;
some in gratitude for having themselves been
preserved or rescued from falling. We all
would show ourselves on the side not of the
Destroyer but of the Saviour of mankind.

V.

THE WOE ON HYPOCRISY.

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for
ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omit-
ted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy,
and faith : these ought ye to have done, and not to leave
the other undone.

** Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel !

** Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for
ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,
but within they are full of extortion and excess.

** Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within
the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean
also.

*'Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear
beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones,
and of all uncleanness.

"Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." — S.
Matthew xxiii. 23-28.

The great series of seven or eight Woes on
Hypocrisy set down in the twenty-third chap-
ter of S. Matthew was uttered by our Lord on
one of the earlier days in the Holy Week, ap-

68 THE GOSPEL WOES.

parently on the Tuesday before He suffered.
At the end of the discourse He bade the Tem-
ple and its courts a solemn and sad farewell :

** O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest
tlie prophets, and stonest them which are sent
unto thee, how often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not ! Behold, your house is left unto you deso-
late. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me
henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is he that
Cometh in the name of the Lord ;"^ till, that
is, they or their children should acknowledge
Him as the Messiah, and welcome Him with
a Hosanna more true and real than the empty
cry of a day or two before.

The discourse then, with its context, falls in
well with thoughts of Passion-tide. The occa-
sion of its delivery is parallel to that other
withdrawal from the Temple of which we hear
in to-day's Gospel, when — a few months ear-
lier— the Jews took up stones — the great
stones that were lying about in the courts for
the building of the Temple, which was still
going on — to cast at our Lord for His claim
to Divine Sonship and Pre-existence. ** Jesus
hid Himself and went out of the Temple," re-
tiring before their fury.' It was when these

' Vv. 37-39. ' S. John viii. 59.

HYPOCRISY. 6g

words were read in the Gospel for this Sun-
day that of old the veil was drawn over the
Cross above the Altar in penitent acknowl-
edgment of the sins which drove away the
Saviour, rejecting Him, and at the last killing
Him.

The remembrance of the context and of the
sorrowful lamentation over the Temple and
the city tend, I think, to show that these
Woes, like the others which we have consid-
ered, are not to be understood as simply denun-
ciatory. Along with the judicial sentence on
the sin there is mingled also a yearning com-
passion for those who are its victims — some-
thing of the passionate complaint that broke
forth on another occasion, "Ye will not come
to Me that ye might have life." ' It has been
suggested that " Woe far you " might be a
better rendering of the words. **Woe unto
you" seems to exclude too entirely the ele-
ment of sorrow, as well as of indignation, of
which the Greek interjection is at least ca-
pable.

These Woes are all called forth by and di-
rected against the Hypocrisy of the Scribes
and Pharisees — the ruling class, that is, of the
Jewish Church. The Scribes, as learned in
the Scriptures, claimed to interpret their mean-

* S. John V. 40.

70 THE GOSPEL WOES.

ing. The Pharisees, by reason of their strict
observance of the Law, were regarded as pat-
terns for the people. Each clause begins
with the words, *' Woe unto you," or " Woe for
you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" with
one variation, " Woe, ye blind guides ! "

Woe for the Scribes and Pharisees, hypo-
crites—

(i) Woe on the abuse of the key of knowl-
edge, by which instead of leading men to the
truth they shut them out therefrom :

(2) Woe on the greedy cant, which under
pretence of religion sponged on the simple folk :

(3) Woe on the proselytizing fanaticism,
which aimed only at an outward conversion
and not a change of heart :

(4) Woe on the blind guides, with their
false, perverted casuistry :

(5) Woe on the sham scrupulosity which,
with a total want of sense of proportion, was
punctilious as to the infinitely little, to the
disregard of the infinitely great :

(6) Woe on the hideous contrast between
external spotlessness and inner corruption :

(7) Woe on the mock repentance which
condemned their fathers for the murder of the
prophets while they themselves reflected the
murderous spirit of their fathers, and were
about to condemn and crucify the Lord of the
prophets.

HYPOCRISY, yi

Now, my brethren, it is an easy matter for
us to condemn and ridicule the Pharisees and
their hypocrisy. Very easy, [ say, but not
very profitable. In doing this we may be
playing their very part, condemning those of
a former age or of other circumstances while
we are really guilty of the self-same sin,
though with us and in our circumstances it
may take a different shape. If we are to
learn our lesson from these words of our Lord,
from this Gospel Woe, we must look a little
more closely into the nature of Hypocrisy.

"The Greek word translated * Hypocrite *
literally means an 'Actor,' one who plays a
part or assumes a character. There are of
course two classes of actors :

" First, those who act legitimately, who for
the sake of affording amusement or instruc-
tion play a part upon the stage ;

** Secondly, those who with the intent to de-
ceive their neighbors play a part in actual life.

" In modern English the word ' Actor ' is re-
stricted to the first class, and the word ' Hypo-
crite * to the second ; and a Hypocrite is used
only in a bad sense, its original signification
of playing a part or assuming a character has
been forgotten." ^

' Professor Momerie's Sermons on Cant, in his volume
Preaching and Hearing, p. 207.

72 THE GOSPEL WOES.

But this is the essence of Hypocrisy, in all
its different forms, ancient and modern.

Now Hypocrites — those who profess what
they do not feel, who assume a character out-
wardly to which there is nothing in the heart
which corresponds — may be reckoned as be-
longing to two classes. Rather, for, knowing
the deceitfulness of our own hearts, we will
not speak in the third person, as if the matter
did not concern ourselves, let us say. Hypo-
crisy is of two chief kinds, takes two leading
forms :

I. There is the acting a part before others^ de-
ceiving the world;

n. There is the acting a part before ourselves^
self-deceit.

Some would add a third form of Hypocrisy,
the acting a part before God ; but this, since it
can hardly be conceived of as conscious and
deliberate, we can better, perhaps, include
under the head of Self-deceit. We are think-
ing throughout, you will understand, of Hypo-
crisy that is connected with Religion.

I. First, then, there is the acting a part be-
fore others. Of this kind of Hypocrisy there
are many subdivisions. I can point to but a
few.

I. There is the Mercenary Hypocrite who
hopes by his profession of piety to enrich

HYPOCRISY. 73

himself. There were Pharisees who for a
pretence made long prayers, and as soon as
the prayers were over proceeded to devour
widows' houses. Such have their counterpart
in modern life. Downright rascality of this
sort is not unknown. And in less glaring
ways such hypocrisy is familiar among us.

2. But a more common form of Hypocrisy
is that which seeks not Gain but Esteem and
the good opinion of others. Such hypocrites
know that genuine religion is admired, and
they fancy that by merely appearing religious
they may secure the admiration they desire.
They want a reputation for piety. They
hunger and thirst for esteem. They live on
appreciation. And so *'A11 their works they
do to be seen of men." Now it is against
anything of this sort that our Lord warns us
repeatedly in the Sermon on the Mount.
When we pray, fast, give alms, He bids us,
*' Be not as the actors," calling attention to
our good deeds, our pious practices. They
fast, they pray, they give alms, that they may
be seen, appreciated, applauded of men.
** Verily I say unto you, They have their re-
ward." But thou, He says, when thou prayest,
enter into thy chamber for thy spiritual exer-
cises ; call not attention to thy self-denial ;
with regard to alms and works of charity let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand

74 THE GOSPEL WOES,

doeth. Keep all such things as far as may be
secret with God, for Whom they are intended.
And thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall
reward thee openly.^

We not only lose any true reward by such
conduct as our Lord condemns ; we suffer an
interior loss and hurt. The effect of allowing
such secondary motives to sway our conduct
is to blind the heart and conscience. The
pure in heart, with a single eye, alone can see
God and the things of God. " How can ye
believe which receive honor one from another,
and seek not the honor which cometh from
the only God?'" Accordingly, our Lord re-
proaches the hypocritical Scribes and Phari-
sees as "fools and blind." Their own moral
perception is perverted.

IL And so we naturally come to the con-
sideration of the second great variety of Hy-
pocrisy— acting a part before ourselves — Self-
deceit. This follows on the deceit of others.

The hypocrite constantly endeavors to ap-
pear that which he is not. At last he may
even deceive himself. He may come to be-
lieve that he actually is what he has always
been trying to appear to be.

" It is said that if actors were to play con-

» S. Matt. vi. I- 1 8. 2 S. John v. 44.

HYPOCRISY. 75

tinually the same part night after night for
many years, their minds might possibly be-
come affected, so that at last they would get
confused about their own identity, and scarcely
be able to tell whether they were themselves
or the characters they represented. Since the
hypocrite acts not only in the evening, but all
day long as well, there would seem to be even
more likelihood of his being overtaken by a
similar catastrophe." *

Here you see is a deeper danger, a dreadful
Woe, to think ourselves religious when we
have only the form of godliness, and are de-
nying its restraining and transforming power.
This is what our Lord points to in the case of
the Pharisees, in various ways.

I. They had formulated a shrewd casuistry,
by which it was proposed to keep the law in
the letter and break it in the spirit. A good
many instances of a similar false casuistry by
which people seek to drug their consciences
will suggest themselves to a thoughtful mind.
Let me mention one, not so common perhaps
to-day as a few years ago. There are people
who would think it very wicked to open a
newspaper on Sunday, who do not hesitate to
spend a considerable time on the Lord's day
in talking about the subjects of which they

^ Momerie, p. 182.

'jS THE GOSPEL WOES.

would read in the paper, and perhaps about a
good deal of personal gossip also.

2. Then there is the allied snare of being
scrupulous and exact about petty details, while
neglectful of weightier matters of the law.
Tithing potherbs— mint, anise, cummin— and
disregarding great ethical obligations — judg-
ment, mercy, faith. A most glaring illustra-
tion we have of this in the history of the
Passion. The chief priests and rulers of the
people led our Lord on Good Friday morning
from Caiaphas' palace to the Roman Gov-
ernor's house. And they themselves would
not enter the Judgment-hall, would not set
foot on heathen ground, lest they should un-
wittingly contract defilement and so be unfitted
to partake of the Paschal feast.' "Afraid of
leaven, not afraid of innocent blood !"

Are there not parallel hypocrisies, self-de-
ceits, to which we are exposed ?

Can you imagine a person punctilious about
matters of outward observance, while careless
of true inward reverence, who would not think,
for instance, of breaking the fast before Com-
munion, yet not hesitating to receive the
Sacrament after an outburst of temper, or
with uncharitable or other evil thoughts al-
lowed in the heart ? You will not misunder-

* S. John xviii. 28.

HYPOCRISY. 77

Stand me. Fasting Communion is a good and
pious practice — a natural instinct of reverence,
it would seem to me ; more than that, it is the
traditional custom of the Church from the
earliest times, until low views of the Sacrament
gained ground. The custom has a claim upon
our observance wherever and whenever it is
possible/ Outward and bodily reverence is
not to be despised, nor faithfulness in little
things. "These ought ye to have done," said
our Lord, referring to the really important
matters, "and not to leave the other undone."
The whole of our religion is sacramental. It
must be so, if it follow the law of the Incar-
nation, if it be true to the constitution of
man's nature. Throughout it has outward and
visible signs of inward and spiritual realities.
But it is the inward reality which gives mean-
ing and virtue to the outward sign. What are
the bread and wine unless they be in truth
the means whereby we receive the Body and
Blood of our Lord ? And of what value are
outward observances save as guarding inner
realities, or as the expression of the soul's de-
votion ? Do let us take heed that we put not
what is unessential and outward in the place
of what is essential. Let us observe a due

^ See a tract on Fasting Communion by the author, No. 8
of "Papers by ?iIission Priests of S. John the Evangelist."

78 THE GOSPEL WOES.

proportion and subordination in all things.
Too often, like the Pharisees, we strain out a
gnat while we swallow a camel.

See an instance of quite a different kind.
There are persons who would not take a pin
from a neighbor, who yet systematically rob
the poor on a large scale by disregard of such
laws of Fair Wages as I referred to last Sun-
day, or by extravagant luxury and vain ex-
penses.

3. There is, my brethren, need for us all to
be on our guard, lest being occupied about
religious things we should think ourselves
necessarily religious. We must not think that
the practice of religious observances will
answer the same purpose as being really re-
ligious. Is there not room for the warning in
Lent ? The Services and Sacraments of the
Church are intended to quicken within us the
Spirit of Christ. Unless they do this, our
participation in them is a kind of stage play.
" If any have not the Spirit of Christ, he
is none of His." ^ Otherwise religious exer-
cises may bring on us, as on the Pharisees,
even *' the greater condemnation."

Let us now turn back for a minute to two
great similes used by our Lord in these Woes,
and see their possible application to ourselves.

HYPOCRISY. 79

{a) In the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth
verses He points to the hypocritical cleansing
of the outside of the cup and the platter.
The vessels are carefully cleansed, their sur-
face within and without. But how about the
contents ? They had been gotten by extor-
tion ; they are used for excess. *'Thou blind
Pharisee," our Lord says, " cleanse first that
which is within, that the outside may be clean
also." Aye, let us learn that lesson, to begin
from within and work outward.

{b.) Then, in the twenty-seventh and twenty-
eighth verses our Saviour, pointing perhaps to
some neighboring sepulclires shining in their
new whiteness, compares the Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, to the graves carefully
whitewashed in the spring of every year, that
men might avoid them, lest by coming in con-
tact with that which was connected with death
they should incur ceremonial defilement. Ye
are like to such whited sepulchres, He says,
which indeed appear beautiful outward, but
within are full of dead men's bones and of all
uncleanness. And note here a point of irony
which perhaps we are apt to miss. As the
whitewashing of the sepulchres gave an ap-
pearance of cleanness, but was really a warn-
ing of concealed uncleanness, so outward
scrupulousness and obtruded show of right-
eousness may be a sign of much that is wrong

80 THE GOSPEL WOES.

within. Real righteousness within would be
attended by a humility which is incompatible
with all obtrusiveness. A religion which is
obtrusive is probably superficial, neither very
true nor very deep. A religious zeal which
expends itself in trifles — whether of doctrine, or
ritual, or observance — has not room or strength
left for the weightier matters of the law. We
cannot but be reminded again, my brethren,
by such considerations, of His all-seeing, all-
penetrating gaze, Whose eyes are as a flame
of fire, Who is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart, Who says to each one, " I
know thy works." * We will again take warn-
ing from the case of Sardis, which had a name
to live but was dead before God, held in repu-
tation by others but whose works were not
found perfect before Him.' This surely is a
thought for Passiontide, as we enter on the
last two weeks, the most solemn part of Lent,
concerning the importance and necessity of
self-examination before our Easter Commun-
ion. Such examination we will make by the
rule and standard of God's commandments,
" not lightly and after the manner of dis-
semblers with God, but so that we may come
holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast." '

' Rev. ii. i8, 23. "^ Rev. iii. I, 2.

' Warning before Holy Communion, in the Prayer Book.

HYPOCRISY, 8 1

"Try me, O God, and seek the ground
of my heart ; prove me, and examine my
thoughts.

"Look well if there be any way of wicked-
ness in me ; and lead me in the way everlast-
ing." '

" From all blindness of heart ; from pride,
vainglory, and hypocrisy. Good Lord, deliver
us."

^ Ps, cxxxix. 23, 24.
6

VI.

THE WOE ON THE TRAITOR.

"The Son of man goeth as it is written of him : but
woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed !
it had been good for that man if he had not been born."
— S. Matthew xxvi. 24.

We have taken the Woes of the Gospel in
their chronological order, as they were pro-
nounced by our Lord in the course of His
ministry. It is not fanciful to trace in them,
as they thus stand, a sort of moral sequence,
an ascending or a descending scale, reaching
a climax or sinking to an abyss, in the Woe
which fitly falls for our consideration as we
enter the Holy Week, the Woe on the Trai-
tor.

The Woe on Worldly Contentment and Ease
stands first. Wealth and worldly goods are
external impediments to the pursuit of true
and solid blessedness. Worldly Popularity is
a more subtle and fascinating danger. The
Abuse of Religious Privileges is still more dan-
gerous, because it is the perversion of what are

THE TRAITOR. 83

designed as blessings. A still deeper guilt
attaches to the Causing others to Stumble.
Hypocrisy while persisted in blinds the heart,
the actor comes to think his own the part he
continually plays. Such Hypocrisy naturally
leads to Treachery — even to betraying the
Son of Man with a kiss. One might almost
say that Judas had passed through those
earlier stages, had failed to take warning by
the other Woes, ere he arrived at this pitch of
iniquity and incurred this most awful doom.

I. Some of you will remember how the
great mediaeval poet places at the very bottom
of the Infernal Pit the Traitors. Deep down be-
low the Seducers, below the Hypocrites — with
Caiaphas, Annas, and the rest of the Council
that condemned our Lord for their chief rep-
resentatives,— finally the Pool of Wailing is
reached by Dante and his guide. A basin of
ice it is represented, as fast bound in frost as
are the affections of the Traitors who are
locked therein. These are ranked in four
classes and stages, each with a punishment
more dreadful, answering to their deeper
guilt, as Betrayers of their Kindred, Betrayers
of their Country, Betrayers of their Friends
and Guests, and Betrayers of their Benefac-
tors and Lords. At the very bottom of the
abyss is seen the Hell-Emperor (he "who

84 THE GOSPEL WOES.

once all created beauty led,")^ — his ingratitude
past estimation, past imagination, all but in-
finite— a monster with triple-faced head, hold-
ing and crunching in his three mouths the
three worst Traitors of all — Judas Iscariot,
Brutus, and Cassius. Traitors these three
against the Divine Head and Founder of the
Church, and against the Divinely appointed
head and founder of the Roman Empire ;
sinners alike against God and against Hu-
manity, sharers in the Sin of Satan, their
treachery — to which they were severally led
by Avarice, by Pride, by Envy — being aggra-
vated, as was his, by ingratitude toward their
benefactors.

"Woe unto that man through whom the
Son of Man is betrayed ! Good were it for
that man if he had not been born." The
awful sentence of Infinite Justice, the affect-
ing lamentation of Infinite Love, finds an
echoing verdict in the human conscience.

II. Note the singularly awful character of
this Woe. It is the declaration of the Incarnate
Word, the sentence of the unerring Judge, the
lament of Infinite Love — "Good were it for

^ Shadow of Dante, 59-103. Plumptre's Dante, Vol. I.,
p. 175, note. Comp. Isa. xiv. 12 ; Ezek. xxviii. 15. The
Fathers interpreted the prophecies concerning the king of
Babylon and the prince of Tyre of Satan.

THE TRAITOR. 85

that man if he had not been born." Do not
our Lord's words close and settle the question,
rule out the fallacious suggestion, of Universal
Restoration to which some fondly cling ? Do
they not imply the possibility of endless ex-
istence in endless loss, declare it as a fact in
the case of one ? If the soul of Judas is here-
after, at however inconceivably remote a fu-
ture, and through whatever agonies of purifi-
cation, to be restored to the light of His coun-
tenance " in Whose presence is the fulness of
joy," how then could the words be true, '* It
were better for him if he had never been
born"? Who counts the billows when the
shore is won ? Who would cast back a mo-
ment's regret at the all but interminable vista
of cleansing agony through which he had
passed at length into the light of the Beatific
Vision, to an eternity of blissful life ? No,
concerning one at least we have been told by
the Truth Himself that God's purpose in His
creation has been frustrated, and that without
hope of recovery. There is a possibility of
endless loss — for there is a lost, a hopelessly,
irretrievably lost and ruined soul, who has
gone to " his own place," ^ not the place for
which God would have fitted him, for which
he was predestined, but that which by a life of

1 Acts i. 25.

86 THE GOSPEL WOES,

constant, sustained deceit, in spite of the
drawings of a more than human love, and at
last by an act of unparalleled treachery and
baseness he earned, appropriated, and made
'' his own. " ^

Now, mark you, the instance of Judas has
both its dread warning and its consoling reas-
surance.

1. Judas was an extreme case. Granted.
Most certainly. None but extreme cases are
lost. God loses none whom He can sav^e con-
sistently with His respect for the free-will
with which He has endowed us. This He
could not force without destroying our moral
being. He rejects none who have not first —
aye, and wilfully and persistently — rejected
Him. He does not easily let any go. *' He
has no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and
live." ^ " He deviseth means that His ban-
ished be not expelled from Him," whereby
they may return.^ But what if they will not
turn? if repudiated Grace and thwarted Love
have to cry, " Ye will not come to Me ? " *

2. Judas was an extreme case ; but it was
not therefore of necessity a unique case. The

' Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, Vol. II., p.
189. ^Ezek. xviii. 23.

2 2 Sam. xiv. 14. * S. John v. 40.

THE TRAITOR. 8/

falling away, and that hopelessly, of one so
near to Jesus, who had been so highly favored,
for whom his Master had such a different pur-
pose, holds forth to us a dread warning as to
such a possibility of utter reprobation for our-
selves likewise.

Judas is surely a representative character.
The Incarnation and the Passion (let me re-
mind you) are a dramatic representation of the
continual attitude of God towards the World
and of the world towards God. They manifest
the abiding relations between God and a fall-
en World. The life, the actions and suffer-
ings of our Lord, the Word made flesh, unveil
and make clear to the eye of sense what else
belonged v/holly to the spiritual sphere. In
outward manifestation the mysteries were once
accomplished. But the outward and literal
accomplishment was the exhibition, as I said,
in dramatic representation of what is continu-
ally being enacted in every age and in every
land, aye, and in our individual lives. We
read the story in our Bible. And a great part
of its fascination for us lies in this, that we
recognize in the Bible story that which we
have witnessed in our own experience. Peter
and Judas, Herod, Caiphas, and Pilate, and the
rest, they are familiar figures, prominent in
the drama which is ever being enacted on the
stage of human life. The unjust, unprincipled

88 THE GOSPEL WOES.

judge, the jeering sensualist, the envious,
crafty politician, the fickle crowd, the cow-
ardly disciple, full of promises but failing at
the point, the treacherous friend — we know
them all. It is the Son of Man who suffers.
It is this which gives meaning to the annual
commemoration of our Lord's Passion. We
are not merely recalling what happened once
near a thousand years ago. The story is never
old. We see ourselves.

** My weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were."

There is another aspect of the Passion as the
climax of the age-long conflict between good
and evil, right and w^rong, love and hate, on
which viewed in this light we should dwell. It
is suggested, or hinted at, in the title by which
our Lord designates Himself, "the Son of
Man." In His Passion as throughout His life
Jesus our Lord is Son of God and Son of
Man. It is the Incarnate Word who is thus
rejected. But this His enemies knew not.
Had they known it, they would not have cru-
cified the Lord of glory. ^ Their eyes were
holden. But Judas knew that he betrayed
the innocent blood,*" that he was false to his
Master, One whose character he knew as kind

» I Cor. ii. 8. ^ g^ M^tt. xxvii. 4.

THE TRAITOR, 89

and true and good. To betray Him he sold
himself for thirty pieces of silver.

So with us. We think it almost impossible
for us to play the part of Judas. Only by a
forced and strained application of the story
can we place ourselves in his position and
find ourselves guilty of his sin. In a way, in-
deed, we can turn on God present with us by
His grace and truth. We can be false to our
faith, to our conscience, can hand over sacred
treasures, the honor of God and His Church
to their enemies.

But false to our brother man we are per-
haps more often tempted to be, and thus to
play the part of Judas. We prove faithless
to our friend, betray the innocent blood. We
may betray any good cause knowingly, through
avarice, pride, or envy, to gratify our spite,
our self-love, in one form or another. So we
share the guilt of Judas betraying the Repre-
sentative Man who gathers up into Himself
all good causes.

Crime may be committed against God in
man, not only against God personally. Christ
suffers in His members, Christ suffers as the
representative of all men. It matters not
whether it be the goodness of God in Himself
or the goodness of God the Incarnate Son, or
the goodness of God in any of His children.
It is the same Goodness to which we are true

'^3851 OV

90 THE GOSPEL WOES.

or false. Truth, Goodness, Right are be-
trayed, denied, insulted ; and thus is Judas*
sin reproduced.

III. But it was not simply the fact of be-
traying the Son of Man that made Judas' case
so hopeless. It was the condition of heart
which led to this possibility. Sins are not
measured by their external effect but by the
will out of which they proceed. The sin
against the Holy Ghost is no one act, how-
ever grievous, but wilful, persistent resistance
to the Holy Ghost and His pleadings which
would lead the sinner to repentance. The pi-
ous instinct of the Church has been to think
that almost all who took part in the actual
crucifixion of our Lord were won to believe in
Him. Believing they drank the Blood which
in unbelief they shed, S. Augustine says of
the soldiers. "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do," Jesus prayed.^ Ju-
das knew what he did. He was steeling his
heart against what was right. This was his
special sinfulness, that he acted against such
light. He was wasting and turning to evil
the gifts of God. He stood in the presence of
the true Light, and his soul chose darkness.
Judas was not like Peter. Peter was presump-

* S. Luke xxiii. 34.

THE TRAITOR. 91

tuous, self-reliant, boastful ; he succumbed to
temptation, overborne with fear ; but he was
sound at the core ; he could protest, " Lord,
Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that
I love Thee." ' But Judas was rotten and un-
true. He deceived himself ; he played tricks
with his conscience, till it ceased to answer true.
He became "a devil," as our Lord declared.'
He was not, remember, always a devil.
Along two lines we can trace his declension.
I. Chosen he had been out of the wider cir-
cle of disciples to be one of the twelve Apos-
tles, chosen not according to any mere arbitrary
selection, but because each had in our Lord's
eyes a certain fitness for the position.' There
must have been in Judas noble qualities to
have been attracted by and to the new Teach-
er ; he had cast in his lot with the Prophet of
Nazareth, had made sacrifices for His sake.
Peter's question would apply to him as to the
rest of the Twelve, "We have left all and fol-
lowed Thee. " ' He was not, I say, always a
devil. Nor did he become a devil all at once,
by a single fall. It is the steps by which he
descended, lower and lower still, till at the last
he reached this pitch of baseness, that give
such solemn warning. Step by step he was

J S. John xxi. 17. ' S. John vi. 70.

< S. Matt. xix. 27.

92 THE GOSPEL WOES.

covetous and ambitious, a hypocrite, deceiving
and being deceived, a slanderer of those who
hindered his covetousness, a betrayer, a sui-
cide. He had begun

** A harmless child, by gold as yet unbought." '

Some root of bitterness there was, an am-
bitious, covetous spirit. Perhaps this had in
part and unconsciously influenced him in
coming to Jesus. He had dreamed of an
earthly Messianic kingdom. Avarice and
greed had crept in and marred the purity of
that soul. Jesus knew it along with the ca-
pacities for good when He called and chose
him. He saw into w^hat fruits those seeds of
evil might unfold. He saw too how it might
be overcome. It was His design to sanctify
Judas. His teaching would be sufficient to
counteract the evil tendencies of his disposi-
tion. But alas ! our Lord's words were ever
in his ear, never in his heart. Judas heard
and did continually the contrary to what he
heard. How must his heart have often smit.
ten him, and how must he have steeled it!

It is so with us. We are called by Jesus.
He knows our dispositions, and He provides
remedies for all faults. But we can, like Ju-
das, thwart His grace. One sin harbored and
allowed, it does not matter what, can work

' Lyra Innocentium, " Judas's Infancy."

THE TRAITOR. 93

our ruin. The besetting sin of any might have
the same effect as that of Judas, destroying the
good qualities of nature, frustrating the work
of grace. In his case the sin happened to be
covetousness ; but any sin will have the same
effect, untruthfulness, impurity and self-indul-
gence, pride and vanity, or disobedience. Is
there in us any such ruling passion, a rift in the
lute that spoils the music ? Lenten self-exam-
ination should show us our real state before
God. We should ask not merely what we hav^e
done ? but what we are ? our attitude toward
God? have I an honest and good heart?

You have some such besetting fault. You
are conscious of it. Your struggle through
life is to be against that sin. All depends on
this. Either you must master that sin, or that
sin will master you. Every deadly sin poisons
life — faith, hope, love ; the last drop of poison
destroys life.

2. There is another side to Judas' declension.
He allowed evil ; and he resisted good. Think
of our Lord's dealing with Judas, how He
sought to win him to repentance, to draw out
his love.

A year before He had warned him. ''Have
not I chosen you twelve ? and one of you is a
devil." ^ To Judas along with the others He

* S. John vi. 70.

94 THE GOSPEL WOES.

had addressed many warnings against covet-
ousness/ He had entrusted Judas with the
common purse ; by giving confidence He had
sought to win it." On tlie evening before
Palm Sunday He had defended Mary from the
attack of Judas, while not exposing his wielded
design.' At the Supper while He gave him a
private sign, showing His knowledge of the
false disciple's guilt, He screens him from the
rest. *' They knew not for what Jesus spoke." *
He knelt at Judas' feet as before Peter and the
beloved disciple. In the Garden, before all was
consummated, while there was yet time for
Judas to repent. He lovingly remonstrated
with him, " Friend, wherefore art thou come ? " *
See the pattern of His dealing with a sinful
soul. How has He thus dealt with us, borne
with us in times of carelessness, been mindful
of us while we were all unmindful of Him, not
easily taking a refusal, placing Himself in our
way. If in spite of these opportunities, plead-
ings, warnings, we persist, surely we are plac-
ing ourselves in Judas' place, we incur his
woe. He had seen the beauty, the love, and
the power of Jesus, and turning from this there
was naught to win him back.

J E.g., S. Luke xii. 15 ; S. Matt. vi. 24.

2 S. John xiii. 29. ' S. John xii. 4-8.

* S. John xiii. 26-29. ^ S. Matt. xxvi. 50.

THE TRAITOR. 95

Deceiving and deceived he went on, until at
last he was given over. Judas went out, '' and
it was night," says S. John.^ It was night
without and tenfold night within. Oh, the
darkness that now settled upon the soul of
Judas, when he finally rejected the warning
voice of Jesus ! " He that doeth evil hateth
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved."^ It was night,
says S. Augustine, when he went out ; and he
that went out was Night. The Light of Truth
had been quenched. The Holy Spirit's flame
put out.

And then, in a moment of distracting frenzy,
he closed by a suicidal hand that life of which
the Lord said : It were good for him if it had
not been begun.

** Whichever way he looked was Hell,
Himself was Hell."

O Thou Who art the Light of the world, and
the Light of our individual consciences, grant
that we may never turn from Thee ; enlighten
us, shew us ourselves in our misery ; shew us
Thyself in Thy grace and truth. From all
hardness of heart and contempt of Thy word
and commandment ; from all resistance to
Thy grace, Good Lord, deliver us."

^ S. John xiii. 30. * S. John iii. 20.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Sermons and Tracts,

Ct8.

The Words from and to the Cross, Medita-
tions 60

Gospel Woes (Lent Lectures) 60

Self Discipline, Lenten Addresses 25 and 60

Meditations on The Life of S. John the

Evangelist. 25

The Saintly Life, Notes for Meditation on tlie

Epistle to the Philippians 25

Concerning Christ and the Church, A Devo-
tional Exposition of the Epistle to the Ephe-

sians 60

Meditations on the Creed 50

•' *' Lord's Prayer 50

** *' Example OF THE Passion.... 35
** ** Collects (1. Advent to Trin-
ity) 60

" *' " (2. Trinity Season

and Saints' Days) 60

Exposition op the Gospel Canticles 50

Reasonable Faith, Four Sermons on Funda-
mental Christian Doctrines 20

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture 10

Reading the Bible 5

Catholic not Protestant nor Roman Catholic . . 15

Apostolic Succession 10

The Eucharistic Sacrifice 10

Confession 10

The Christian Law Concerning Marriage and

Divorce 10

Prayers for the Departed, 5c. ; The Communion
OF Saints, 5c.; Christian Friendship, 10c. ;
Retreats, 5c.; Fasting Communion, 5c.;
Hints for Lent, 5c. ; Fasting, 5c.

Mission muse of S. John the Evangelist, 44 Temple St., Boston, Mass,